In today's society, cleanliness is very important both from a health standpoint and an aesthetic standpoint. However, when one is away from home it is much more difficult to perform personal cleansing due to unavailability of traditional cleansing tools such as soap, cloths, and running water. Cleansing of sensitive areas of the body also requires special consideration, as ordinary towel products, cleansing agents, and other associated materials such as disinfectants may cause irritation and discomfort.
To address this problem, manufacturers of consumer products have developed disposable, paper-based towel products which are pre-moistened with a non-irritating cleansing agent. As used herein, the terms "single-use" and "disposable" are used interchangeably to refer to towels and packages which are to be used once and then discarded, rather than retained (and perhaps cleaned) for reuse. There are two basic types of containers for such pre-moistened towel products, namely multi-towel containers and single-towel disposable packages.
In a typical multi-towel container, a flexible or rigid moisture-impervious container is utilized. The pre-moistened towel products are either on a roll, with perforations defining the ends of individual towels, or in some sort of folded, stacked relationship such that one towel at a time (or in some cases, more than one) is presented to the consumer and can readily be extracted from the container. These containers thus typically promote easy dispensing of individual towels, and are usually recloseable to protect the remaining towels. The major drawback of most multi-towel containers is that, because of the number of towels contained, of necessity they have a significant amount of bulk, are awkward to carry away from home, and render discretion in use practically impossible.
Pocket-sized, single-towel disposable packages designed for away-from-home use avoid the bulk and awkwardness of the multi-towel containers, but are not without drawbacks. Most such packages do not have a defined portion of the towel which is presented to the consumer upon opening the package, and hence the consumer must typically reach inside the package and fish about for the folded towel to grasp and extract it. Due to the lack of a roll of towels to feed from and/or other towels to interact with, in a typical single-towel package the folded pre-moistened towel is typically dispensed as a small, tightly folded moist pad consisting of the towel as it remains folded in two directions, i.e., along major axes of the towel. The consumer must then manually unfold this small pad of material to have the entire extent of the towel available for use. This is an undesirable and time-consuming process requiring two hands to accomplish, and without which the towel is of little practical use. The pre-moistened nature of the towel exaggerates this problem. The amount of handling of the towel which this unfolding requires also presents a significant likelihood of contamination of the towel prior to actual use.
The present invention is directed to improving single- and multi-towel packages to provide the advantageous accessibility and unfolding features of multi-towel containers while retaining the transportability and concealability of a single-towel disposable package, and thus increase consumer satisfaction with this type of product. A plurality of such single-towel packages, or multi-towel variations of such packages, may thus provide comfort and convenience as might be required for a day of traveling or a full day away from home. Specific attributes and advantages of this invention will be apparent with reference to the accompanying Specification and Drawing Figures.